In this article, Derek Stockley outlines his personal definition of talent management and explains the growing importance of the concept.

The current increased discussion about skill shortages and the population growing older means that organisations, if they have not done so already, should be reviewing their approach to talent management.

Talent management definition
I define talent management as:

A conscious, deliberate approach undertaken to attract, develop and retain people with the aptitude and abilities to meet current and future organisational needs.

Talent management involves individual and organisational development in response to a changing and complex operating environment. It includes the creation and maintenance of a supportive, people oriented organisation culture.

Importance of talent management
Like human capital, talent management is gaining increased attention.

Talent management (TM) brings together a number of important human resources (HR) and management initiatives.

Organisations that formally decide to "manage their talent" undertake a strategic analysis of their current HR processes. This is to ensure that a co-ordinated, performance oriented approach is adopted.

Quite often, organisations adopting a TM approach will focus on co-ordinating and integrating:

- Recruitment - ensuring the right people are attracted to the organisation.

- Retention - developing and implementing practices that reward and support employees.

- Employee development - ensuring continuous informal and formal learning and development.

- Leadership and "high potential employee" development - specific development programs for existing and future leaders.

- Performance management - specific processes that nurture and support performance, including feedback/measurement.

- Workforce planning - planning for business and general changes, including the older workforce and current/future skills shortages.

- Culture - development of a positive, progressive and high performance "way of operating".

The rest of the article can be viewed at http://derekstockley.com.au/newsletters-05/020-talent-management.html

Regards,

CHRM

"Think HR, think CHRM..